Inal Bilsel, "Once Upon a Cloudtop Meadow". Honestly, the title alone conjures... well, precisely what the music delivers. It's an album that sounds like the background music for a Studio Ghibli film that doesn't exist yet, but absolutely should. Have you ever seen a cat yawn so widely it looks like it's trying to swallow the sun? That level of surprising delight – that's...

There is a peculiar alchemy happening with Jimmy Eff and the Sundogs on their new single, "Better Like Before". It sits in the air like the smell of ozone right after a lightning strike charged, crisp, and signifying a sudden shift in the atmosphere. You listen to it, and you sort of expect the industrial gray of their Birmingham home base, yet the sound...